OTTAWA — One of Canada’s largest charities has found itself on the defensive after being singled out by a federal Conservative cabinet minister over its opposition to Israeli settlements.

The apparent flap between Employment Minister Jason Kenney and international development group Oxfam Canada is noteworthy because the Conservative government has previously cut funding to other charities that spoke out against the settlements.

It also raises questions about whether the Conservative government agrees with official Canadian policy, as stated on the Foreign Affairs department’s website, that the settlements are illegal.

The row started after U.S. actress Scarlett Johansson quit her role as a global ambassador for Oxfam after agreeing to represent Sodastream, a soda company whose primary factory is located in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

Oxfam opposes all trade with such settlements, which most countries, including Canada, consider illegal under international law, and Johansson’s continued presence as a representative for the charity was seen as counter to its position.

Such a link has come to be considered a death sentence for Canadian charities who rely on federal government funding, ever since Kenney linked church-based development group Kairos to the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign in late 2009.

Kairos ended up losing its federal funding despite repeated assertions it does not support sanctions against Israel, only against products and services linked to Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Following Kenney’s tweet, Oxfam Canada executive director Robert Fox released a statement Tuesday outlining a position similar to that of Kairos.

“Oxfam does not and has never supported a boycott of trade with Israel,” Fox said.

“Oxfam opposes trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank because these settlements are illegal under international law. We believe these settlements exacerbate the injustice and poverty that Oxfam addresses in its ongoing programs.”

Oxfam Canada, which runs foreign aid programs such as boosting health-care services and women’s rights in more than a dozen countries, received more than half of its $31 million budget from federal government grants in 2012.

There was no immediate response from Kenney.

The Conservative government’s views on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have been shrouded in mystery.

A written statement on the Foreign Affairs department website says the settlements are not legal — essentially because they are being built in “occupied territories” won by Israel in the 1967 war.

But Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet ministers have been reluctant to publicly voice the same language when asked repeatedly about it at recent news conferences in Ottawa, and when the prime minister visited the Middle East last month.